Harrison v. Ollison

Procedural entryThis page is a short order in Harrison v. Ollison. Read the opinion of the Court — 519 F.3d 952
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit·Decided March 19, 2008·No. 06-55470·Published

Opinion

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

DAVE HARRISON,  No. 06-55470 Petitioner-Appellant,

v.  D.C. No.

CV-05-01465-DMS

DERRICK L. OLLISON, Warden, OPINION

Respondent-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Dana M. Sabraw, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

September 27, 2007—Pasadena, California

Filed March 20, 2008

Before: J. Clifford Wallace, Thomas G. Nelson, and Sandra S. Ikuta, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Ikuta

2636 HARRISON v. OLLISON

COUNSEL

Kurt David Hermansen, Law Office of Kurt David Hermansen , San Diego, California, for the petitioner-appellant.

Carol C. Lam, United States Attorney; Bruce R. Castetter, Lawrence E. Spong, Assistant United States Attorneys, San Diego, California, for the respondent-appellee.

OPINION

IKUTA, Circuit Judge:

A federal prisoner challenging the legality of a sentence must generally do so by a motion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. However, when a motion under § 2255 is “inadequate or ineffective to test the legality” of a prisoner’s detention, see id., a prisoner may bring a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. This appeal requires us to determine whether the petitioner , Dave Harrison, was entitled to bring his habeas petition under § 2241. Before reaching that question, we must determine whether Harrison needs a certificate of appealability , see 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c), before he can appeal the district court’s dismissal of his § 2241 petition for lack of jurisdiction.

HARRISON v. OLLISON 2637

I

In 1988, Dave Harrison was charged with using a pipe bomb to blow up a 1978 Volkswagen van and with burning a 1974 Reinell cabin cruiser motorboat. Harrison pleaded guilty in the district court for the Southern District of California to bombing and arson, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 844(i).1 This federal arson statute includes an interstate commerce element for purposes of establishing federal jurisdiction, namely, that the arson must have affected a “building, vehicle, or other real or personal property used in interstate or foreign commerce or in any activity affecting interstate or foreign commerce .” Id.

As part of the plea agreement, both Harrison and the government stipulated to the interstate commerce component of § 844(i). For the van, the parties stipulated:

[A]t the time the van was driven and used in the commercial business which [Harrison’s wife] delivered , basically delivered cakes to many people[;] those cakes have traveled in interstate commerce.

1 18 U.S.C. § 844(i) states:

Whoever maliciously damages or destroys, or attempts to damage or destroy, by means of fire or an explosive, any building, vehicle , or other real or personal property used in interstate or foreign commerce or in any activity affecting interstate or foreign commerce shall be imprisoned for not less than 5 years and not more than 20 years, fined under this title, or both; and if personal injury results to any person, including any public safety officer performing duties as a direct or proximate result of conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be imprisoned for not less than 7 years and not more than 40 years, fined under this title, or both; and if death results to any person, including any public safety officer performing duties as a direct or proximate result of conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall also be subject to imprisonment for any term of years, or to the death penalty or to life imprisonment.

2638 HARRISON v. OLLISON In addition, the van was fueled with gasoline that had traveled in interstate and foreign commerce; and, finally, the van itself had been manufactured in the Republic of West Germany, having traveled in foreign commerce, had been sold here in California and replacement parts necessary to repair the damage that the defendant did will also travel in interstate and foreign commerce.

The parties stipulated to the interstate commerce component for the cabin cruiser motorboat as follows:

[T]he boat was manufactured in 1974 in the state of Washington. It was traveling in interstate commerce and was sold in California. At the time it was destroyed had been [sic] many parts had traveled in interstate commerce. The boat was licensed in the state of Nevada and the owner of the boat paid a fee to a business for the care and maintained and stored the boat in the state of Nevada where it was moored most of the time. The owner of the boat frequently crossed state lines with it bringing it to California and between Nevada and Arizona.

Harrison was sentenced by the district court for the Southern District of California to two consecutive ten-year prison terms for the arson and bombing, which were to be followed by a five-year probationary term for aiding and abetting the interstate transportation of stolen property. Harrison is currently in state prison in the Central District of California and will commence federal parole upon his release.2 For purposes 2 Following the federal conviction at issue in this case, Harrison was convicted in California state court of the first degree murder of his former wife. Due to the pending sentence of federal parole, Harrison is “in custody ” for purposes of the federal habeas provisions, § 2241(c) and § 2255. See Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Ky., 410 U.S. 484, 488-89 & n.4 (1973) (petitioner may challenge future imposition of sentence for which detainer has been lodged while in custody for earlier sentence of different sovereign); Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U.S. 236, 242-43 (1963) (parole “significantly restrain[s] petitioner’s liberty” sufficient to satisfy “ ‘custody’ . . . within the meaning of the habeas corpus statute”).

HARRISON v. OLLISON 2639 of clarity, we will refer to the district court for the Southern District of California, where Harrison was sentenced, as the “sentencing court,” and the district court for the Central District of California, where Harrison is in custody, as the “custodial court.”

Harrison filed a timely notice of appeal on March 1, 1989. We dismissed the appeal for failure to prosecute on June 28, 1989. Apparently unaware of this dismissal, Harrison also filed a motion for voluntary dismissal of his appeal on August 1, 1989.

Following his direct appeal, Harrison attempted to challenge his conviction and sentence by means of motions under § 2255 and petitions under § 2241. The history of Harrison’s collateral challenges to his conviction must be understood in the context of these two bases for collateral relief from federal sentences, § 2255 and § 2241, and the limitations Congress has imposed on these forms of relief.

A

As a general rule, “§ 2255 provides the exclusive procedural mechanism by which a federal prisoner may test the legality of detention.” Lorentsen v. Hood, 223 F.3d 950, 953 (9th Cir. 2000). Section 2255 allows a federal prisoner claiming that his sentence was imposed “in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States” to “move the court which imposed the sentence to vacate, set aside or correct the sentence .” 28 U.S.C. § 2255. A prisoner may not bring a second or successive § 2255 motion in district court unless “a panel of the appropriate court of appeals” certifies that the motion contains:

(1) newly discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evi-

2640 HARRISON v. OLLISON dence that no reasonable factfinder would have found the movant guilty of the offense; or

(2) a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable.

28 U.S.C. § 2255. Nor may a prisoner appeal the denial of a § 2255 motion unless this court or the district court issues a certificate of appealability under § 2253(c).3 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(B). Such a certificate may issue “only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” Id.

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